Page 17 of Taming His Brat

She had no idea how long Vicky was going to stay and she wanted to take advantage of every minute while she had the chance. So, while she agreed with everything Sam was saying, she just didn’t know if she’d be able to resist when her own heart was telling her to go for it.

“I can do that, Charlie, but I’m going to remind you that you asked for this when you get mad at me.”

When not if; he knew her so well. She couldn’t deny that either. “That’s fair.”

“Good, now let’s go eat. I’m starving and you’re not missing dinner two nights in a row,” Sam said as he got off the bed. His stomach made a lout growling sound to punctuate his words.

She rolled her eyes as she followed him to the kitchen to start dinner cooking again, but the truth was she loved his protective side. Those little touches and moments when he took care of her meant a lot. The submissive side of her enjoyed doing things for him in return and that was one reason she’d started cooking his dinner most nights when she wasn’t working with him.

There was something grounding in a daily task that obviously pleased him so much. Watching his face light up when he came through the door tired and saw that dinner was cooking pleased her on a very basic level. Sitting across from each other to eat was special too.

She was discovering that so many of the things that seemed boring or silly from the outside really did a lot to build up a relationship. In some ways it felt like this was her first adult romance. When they’d dated before she’d still lived under her father’s roof and there was a certain amount of sneaking around even after they were both over eighteen.

Now they were living together, and it all felt different, but in a good way. Sitting there and talking about their day like an old married couple—she cut the thought off there and waited for the wave of panic that usually followed any thought of marriage. Seconds went by but nothing happened.

She slowly relaxed and finally smiled as she settled back in her chair. Getting to know Vicky was helping, she was sure of it. Of course, she knew what Sam would say. Or at least, she played out what she thought he’d say in her head.

Just because you thought of us married and didn’t have a panic attack once doesn’t mean anything Charlie. You don’t have one every time, do you?

And he’d be right, she didn’t get anxious every single time she thought about their relationship deepening, but still she was choosing to take it as a good sign. She ignored the niggling thought in the back of her head warning her to be careful.

Despite all the earlier tears she was back to being in a good mood and enjoyed the conversation with Sam. But it was natural that eventually the conversation would roll around to the things she was supposed to be getting done.

“Did you decide on the contractor yet?”

She nodded and waited until her mouth wasn’t full so she could explain her new plans. “I did, and I did put in a call to tell them I was accepting their estimate, but I told them we wanted to wait a few weeks before we got started on the actual work. They’ll be coming around to get measurements and make supply lists though.”

His eyebrow went up. “Why the delay? With this early winter coming on that might not be the best idea.”

She shifted in her chair and kept her eyes focused on the plate in front of her. “Well Vicky said a couple weeks would be enough to get her back on her feet, so I figured it would be easier for her if they weren’t tearing everything up over there.”

After the conversation they’d just had she was expecting another lecture, but Sam just sighed. “Figured it was that. Well, I guess two weeks won’t hurt much.”

“It might be a little longer than that if—”

He gave her a look and shook his head. “Two weeks and the construction starts. If she needs to stay longer then she’ll just have to put up with the mess, right?”

“But…”

“Right, Charlie?” His voice went hard and so did his expression.

She sighed. “Yes Daddy. I’ll tell them we want it to start in two weeks. I guess we can have them do it one floor at a time if she’s still here.” They’d already discussed doing it that way so it wouldn’t be that big of a deal, hopefully.

Her motherhadarrived unexpectedly after all and couldn’t just expect them to change everything for her without warning anyway, could she? But there had been some strong hinting that Charlieshouldput it off so Vicky could stay there and that was what made Charlie decide to postpone it. She’d been so eager and rushed to get things started and then somehow when Vicky subtly brought up how nice it would be if things could be delayed… it had felt reasonable to do that.

But apparently Sam didn’t feel the same way. He was probably right.

“Good.” He seemed like he wanted to say something else but then he just shook his head and went back to concentrating on his meal.

She had a feeling it would have been another warning about Vicky, but he probably figured he’d already made his point. And he had, but it was a point that was going to keep coming up over the next few weeks because it never seemed to stick when she was out of his sight.

She tried to take what he’d said into account whenever she spent time with her mother, but before she knew it, she’d be laughing and having a good time and she’d forget. The woman was starting to feel less like a stranger and more like a real mom every day. They did things together, mostly shopping and lunches out since Vicky had absolutely zero interest in the ranch. She didn’t even want to look around to see how things had changed in all the years she’d been gone.

“No thanks, I had enough of mud and flies when I lived here. More than enough to last a lifetime,” she said with a delicate sniff that seemed full of derision.

Charlie shouldn’t have been surprised at that since from what she’d heard the ranch was a big part of the problem between her parents. It just seemed weird to her that anyone could hate such a beautiful place. And even people who didn’t care for the ranch or the cows usually moved past it to enjoy looking at the horses, but Vicky was adamant that she didn’t want to get any closer than the house itself.

Charlie didn’t want to argue so she gave in and invariably they ended up doing whatever Vicky wanted to do. After the first few days she started to notice that her mother looked worried any time she paid for things. A pinched anxious look would cross the older woman’s face and for a moment she’d actually looked her age.

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